Writing Your Resume

Getting Started

Brainstorm and collect information in a personal file that includes:

• projects that demonstrate academic excellence and skill competencies
• awards and honors
• accomplishments
• leadership information
• performance reviews
• clubs and organization memberships and activities
• volunteer work
• other documents and data
• Refer to this file when writing the résumé,as well as when building your portfolio

Drafting the Résumé

Organize your résumé into sections. There are no rules on what sections your resume must have. Create sections that help tell your story to employers, differentiate you, and make your resume easy to scan.

In your Experience section(s), do not copy your job description; many job titles let the reader know what you did on the job (think waiter…most of know that a waiter takes and delivers orders). Instead, emphasize achievements, the impacts you made on the organization, and transferable skills you developed (again, the waiter might focus on team work, resolving conflict, time management). Think strategically. Use action verbs, numbers, and other supporting language. Create examples that differentiate you from the competition.

POSITIONING STATEMENTS

Consider adding a positioning section at the top of your résumé, if you have room or if your résumé is not very focused. This can be an Objective, Qualifications, Summary, Value Proposition, or Profile.

This section should be a very specific snapshot of who you are and entice the reader to want to know more about you. This is not a statement of what you are looking for, and, most importantly, write this creatively and interestingly; do not bore the reader from the onset. If you make a claim in your positioning statement, you must provide evidence of it elsewhere in your resume.

Most students’ resumes do not need a positioning statement; however, if you will not be able to submit a cover letter with the resume, these can be useful tools to create a message of how you fit with what the employer is searching for. Also, if your experience and degree do not completely line up with the position, qualifications statements may help you link your experience with the requirements of the position. Rewrite or reconsider these statements each time you submit your resume. A final use for positioning statements is to take up room on a resume that is weak. The better solution is to get experience, highlight class projects that prepare you for the position, join and become a leader in student organizations, volunteer, get involved in research, or other activities where you can demonstrate the qualities an employer desires.

Order of Sections

In Western civilization, we read left to right, top to bottom. Hence,put your most important information at the top and left side of the page. For most students, Education will be the first section, because it is what differentiates you from your peers who don’t have the education you are excelling at or receiving. If you have a positioning statement, it will go before Education. The rest of the order depends on the importance of each section to the

opportunity at hand. After you have been out of school a few years, your education section will drop to the bottom of your résumé, for it no longer is the great differentiator - your experience is. Your degree now serves as a criterion for most positions. Also, the amount of information you list in the Education section will likely shrink to only the university and degree; you may even delete the graduation year to alleviate ageism.

Delivery Options

And Naming Your File

A recruiter receives hundreds of resumes, and many are named “resume.” Make filing your emailed résumé easy on the recipient. Include your name and possibly some information on the opportunity in the document’s file name, e.g., résumé_MPorter_biochemist.

A common complaint of recruiters is that they receive file names with another organization’s name on it,
e.g. résumé_kpmg when it was sent to DeLoitte.

PDFS

Consider converting your document into a PDF for any Internet-based posting or e-mailing. This will protect it from formatting mishaps and tampering. Most newer Word programs and Mac computers offer PDF conversion. If you don’t have PDF capability on your computer, there are several free programs available on-line.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Is your e-mail address sweetcheeks1558@hotmail.com? It is time to create a professional identity. When you are e-mailing your résumé or posting it on a webpage, keep your e-mail address in a hyperlink; however, when you are using a hard-copy résumé, remove the hyperlink. Also consider what email service you use. Recruiters have biases and make judgments about people based on the service used. For example,

• Yahoo and Hotmail are often seen as throw-away or junk mail accounts

AOL is viewed by many as for older, non-tech-savvy customers
your school account close to graduation, if you don’t keep it active or check it post-graduation, could cause you to miss opportunities or an employer may think that you still view yourself as a student, not a professional.

Proper VS Common 

Capitalize proper nouns, initials, acronyms, headings, titles of publications, and a sentence (not a fragment or list) after a colon. If you do not remember the rules of proper nouns, review some style books. Here are two samples to consider for correct usage of capitalization:

       Job Titles: If the title is part of the person’s name, it is capitalized.

• Prepared PowerPoint presentations for the president of the company
• Wrote biographical pieces on President Obama and President Rousseff for the trade summit
  
  Courses: Only the formal name of a course is capitalized:
•  Learned about juvenile delinquent behavior in a criminal justice course

Honed skills in critical writing and analysis in Criminal Procedure.

Numbers Make Examples Real

Whenever it is possible verify skills, experiences, and achievements with numbers. Numbers provide tangibility to your claims and link the theoretical to the practical. If you are sloppy on your résumé, the reader has the right to assume your work for the organization will be the same.

Misspelling

Use Spell Check and ask friends, professors, family members, and others to read the documents again and again. However, be wary of Spell Check; this resource is not always correct and does not catch correct spellings of the incorrect word. Consider the possible errors with “there, they’re, and their.”

Last Minute Edits

When making edits, always recheck the entire document. Formatting errors and misspellings can occur easily when you change a section.

PERIOD OR NOT TO PERIOD.

THAT IS THE QUESTION.

It is best to not have punctuation at the end of a string of bullets,because this is seen as clutter on the page. If, however, you choose to use punctuation, be consistent and add periods, etc. to the end of all your bullets. Many people aren’t consistent throughout the document, and this causes nonparallel construction.

GETTING LOST IN THE SPECIFICS

Describe job, leadership, and other experiences with specific details. Tell stories. Let the reader get a sense of whom you are and what they can expect from you. Don’t write job descriptions full of duties; instead write of accomplishments, personal development,innovations, results, and impacts.

The Vernacular 

Use the language of the industry. This makes your résumé easy to scan for keywords and lets the reader know you understand the industry.

WOULD U HIRE THE LAZY ONE ?

E-mailing, text messaging, and writing on e-walls have trained us all to become lazy, informal writers. The résumé is a formal, marketing document; avoid lazy writing. Beware of the following:

• Ampersands: The & symbol is an ampersand. Use it in the proper name of a group or other proper title; do not use it in lieu of and. Sanford & Sons is correct. Crawfish, shrimp, & crab is not.
• Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Initials: Use these with great caution; not only is it lazy writing, but you are assuming your reader will know what they mean.

And/or: Often when this is used, we mean one or the other. Use more powerful language and clearer sentences.

VERBS : ACTIVE OR PASSIVE 

In your experience sections, each bullet should begin with a verb. Employers hire you for what you can and will do for them, not for what you are. Use active voice and action verbs. Ensure verb tenses are correct to the timeframe that you are documenting.

THESE PEOPLE JUST DON'T BELONG

A list of references nor a statement References Available does not belong on your résumé. Instead create a reference sheet with full contact information. Bring this document to the interview; only send this sheet with your résumé if it is requested in the application.

DO THEY CARE? DID YOU SAY IT RIGHT?

Ensure the style of your résumé fits the industry and organization you are targeting.

NO PRONOUNS ALLOWED

Résumés are written with an understood I. Avoid pronouns.

PARALLEL UNIVERSE

Carefully review your verb tenses, style choices, spacing, tabs, and other formatting for consistency.

HYPERBOLES, NOT HYPERACTIVE

Do not use overly effusive language or make claims you cannot prove. Never lie or exaggerate on your resume.

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY?

Do not list high school information, even if you graduated from a school that has cachet or a powerful alumni network. There are other ways to optimize these relationships.

There are a few exceptions, but typically only if you accomplished something extraordinary in high school, such as “winner of National Debate Tournament” or you received experience in your select field.

The other exception is a freshmen building their first résumé; however, the freshman year should be spent building experiences and applications that start to fill a professional résumé. Once a student has begun the sophomore year, no high school has little merit.

IT'S NOT PERSONAL

Do not list anything that could put the employer in any sort of Equal Employment Opportunity trouble. This includes age, marital status, sexual orientation, family information, health, ethnicity, and religious affiliation.

Consider the value of including any controversial information on your resume. For instance, if you were active in a the Young Socialists of America club and are applying to a conservative organization, weigh carefully the value of putting this on your resume.

Never list your social security number, bank information, or other private information. Social security numbers typically are not put on résumés; however, some government résumés require them.

ONE PAGE, TWO PAGE, THREE PAGE, MORE?

Most students’ résumés will be one page; however, if you make a compelling case to read more than one page and you’ve used your white space well, the reader will read more than one. The truth,however, is that rarely does a student need a résumé that will exceed one page. Also, rarely does a seasoned professional need more than two pages.